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Primal Force of Our Ancestors
Revue Noire 1990
Lázara Castellanos Cartaya
…Beginning in the 80’s, young Cuban creators left the art schools. They were joined by others, self-taught young people, all rebellious and irreverent. This was the postmodern wave which hoped to push aside what was left of the ‘Ecole de Paris.’
Born in 1944, Clara Morera evolved in an apocalyptic world. Fear, anguish and doubt invade this woman, almost completely forgotten by the world. Her tapestries of burnt material, painted, twisted and glued canvas, push open the sacred doors into the temple of the divine. Postmodern, innocent, esoteric and mystical, she seeks the light by giving form to the spirits of the Saints.
Syncretic worship is not practiced only among African ethnic groups. In the Caribbean, an assimilation has occurred, a blend of beliefs. Certain artists incorporate these forms from the universe of the black man without themselves being black. From this estrangement a contemporary creative spirit has emerged.
These past years, studies of the philosophical roots of these beliefs have permitted a reinterpretation of related images—a reinterpretation which is perhaps not accepted by adherents. Colors have ceased to function as symbols of the Orishas; in a drawing, for instance, Oyá may appear in red and black—traditional colors of Elegba.
Now is the time to search within the terrifying and the agonizing; it is time to abanadon, at last, the Carnival and its disguises.
Lázara Castellanos Cartaya, Art critic
Revue Noire, Paris, 1990.
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